BCCI’s red-ball roadmap: Sooryavanshi and Mhatre lead the Gen Z charge

New Delhi: After five home Test defeats against New Zealand and South Africa in 2024 and 2025 respectively, BCCI's Centre of Excellence (COE) under VVS Laxman has chalked out an elaborate roadmap with the 'Gen Z' flagbearers like Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and Ayush Mhatre set to play four-day red ball games in an intra-COE tournament in June-July.

The aim of the intra-COE tournament with 64 top young cricketers -- all aged under 25 -- is to identify and create a supply chain in order to refurbish India's red ball talent for the next decade.

It is understood that all the coaches, national selectors -- senior, pathways (India A, India U-23) and age-group (U-19, U-16) associated with the Centre of Excellence -- have been expressly told that the focus during the next one year for most High Performance Camps in Bengaluru will be all about getting the red ball talent pool on track looking at the near and distant future.

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"The India Emerging side will comprise of only U-25 players and they will also constitute India A teams for shadow tours also. The roadmap will be created keeping senior chairman of selectors Ajit Agarkar, head coach Gautam Gambhir in loop," a BCCI source told PTI on conditions of anonymity.

"Once the IPL ends, India U-19 and Emerging (U-25) will both tour Sri Lanka for four-day games. The squad will be selected based on Intra-COE tournament performances."

How would teams be selected?

The plan is to select 64 cricketers, who would then be divided into four squads of 16 each. Each team will get to play two four-day red ball games at the COE and different pitch conditions will be on offer to give them proper match practice.

Out of the 64, there will be 25 cricketers (U-23), who will be selected by the junior selection committee headed by S Sharath, comprising players who have performed well in the Cooch Behar (U-19) and CK Nayudu (U-22) red ball events.

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Another 25 cricketers (U-23 and U-25) will be selected by the senior selection committee from among those who have performed in Ranji Trophy, Vijay Hazare Trophy and Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT) but not a part of the Indian Premier League.

Apart from these 50 cricketers, there will be another 14 players, mainly the young superstars, who are part of the IPL, including the likes of Mhatre, Sooryavanshi, Sameer Rizvi to name a few, who would then complete the list of 64, if all are fit and available.

"The idea is to select 25 after the intra-COE tourney and this core group of cricketers will represent both Emerging and India A in shadow tours. The BCCI brass and Team India management is pretty clear -- even for U-19s, the focus for next one year has to be red ball," the source said. (PTI)

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